Notes from Class Management lecture, 14th November 2013

Class Management Ideas

a lecture by Anette Igel (igelanette@yahoo.co.uk)

• the rules should be established in the very first lesson of the school year
• keep the rules positive, as few “don’ts” as possible
• it is a good idea to let students come up with the rules themselves by brainstorming and only guide them to what you actually aim for - all IN ENGLISH! A lot of grammar used just in this activity (turning negative sentences into positive ones, etc.) - there is a notion of responsibility among the students for the rules if they are actually the ones who came up with them
• Activity - Anti-rules: Let students come up with the OPPOSITE of what is expected of them in classroom (“Speak out loud whenever you feel like it.” vs. “Keep quiet.” etc.)
• see to it that rules are followed (it usually takes only one example and the others will get the message)!
• Activity - Pyramid discussion: Split the class into small groups of two, let them brainstorm six adjectives for a given topic, then join groups to a larger one and boil the adjectives down to six again, repeat until the group is not the whole class again and then put the remaining (and supposedly the most essential) adjectives on board.
• keep your personal attitudes and feelings outside the classroom, your personal viewpoints affect your professional judgment and performance
• Activity: give students some answers first and them let them brainstorm questions for these answers - practices forming questions and choosing the correct tense.

• Activity: Dictation: Ask students to put down fifteen numbers with the following things (example follows):

1 - green (favorite color)
2- crappy (type of weather)
3 - Karen Gillan (favorite actor/actress)
4 - Peter (favorite boy/girl name)
5 - July (favorite month)
6 - train (favorite mean of transport)
7 - dog (favorite animal)
8 - pizza (favorite food)
9 - the Netherlands (favorite country or city)
10 - jeans (favorite piece of clothing)
11 - coffee shop (favorite type of shop)
12 - running (favorite activity)
13 - hacky sack (favorite object)
14 - beer (favorite drink)
15 - happy (favorite mood)

Then dictate them a short text with numbers in it. They need to replace the numbers with the stuff they have written earlier:

It was a crappy day in July. I was in the Netherlands and I was drinking some beer. Suddenly the phone rang. It was Karen Gillan and friends. They were happy because I was late. So I put on my green jeans and picked up hacky sack. I made sure that Peter, the dog, had some pizza, and left. I quickly travelled by train and went to coffee shop. When I arrived, I was surprised to see my friends were running there.

• Activity - Getting to know each other: an activity to remember everyone’s name - acronyms out of students’ names are made into somewhat truthful sentences that describe them, make these into posters and hang them around the classroom. Check grammar of the sentences as well!

Anette is

Not

English

Though she

Thinks in

English

Mirek

Is

of Rather

Energetic

Kind

• Activity - The best homework excuses: how to deal with students constantly apologizing for forgetting homework - the first student has to put the excuse on paper (“My dog ate my homework.”), this paper will be hanged in the classroom and every time someone else forgets the homework, he or she must come up with a new apology (it doesn’t substitute the homework but at least it makes them use the language in some way)
• how to deal with a noisy classroom: after entering the classroom, put several page/exercise numbers of students’ text book on board and announce this to be the homework, then, during the lesson, reward good work by erasing one number in time, this will give the class the notion that the better they behave, the less work they will have to endure at home (it is a good idea to keep the most essential exercises that you actually DO want as the homework on the top and keep them there)

Concept Checking Questions (CCQs)

You've just explained your students new grammar or taught them new vocabulary and you need to check if they understand the concept correctly. What is the most common way to do this? Yeah, you've got it - asking questions such as "Do you understand?" or "Is this clear?" Unfortunately, apart from this being the most common way, it is also the least effective one because very scarcely you will come across a student who will be brave enough to admit he doesn't understand what you've been talking about for the past several minutes. Would you anyway? Would you like to be apparently the only person among your peers dumb enough to not grasp the new material? This problem however doesn't need to be limited to the matter of courage among your students - they may honestly believe they understand the concept correctly simply because you weren't specific enough. Say you've explained the word "thumb" by raising your own thumb. Clear as a day, right? But are you talking about your thumb or any finger? Or your whole hand? Or you might be even miming the activity of hitch-hiking! All of this creates ambiguity that adds to the possible confusion among your students.

Concept checking questions are designed to deal exactly with this - you need to come up with a question that will check the understanding among your students without revealing the word itself in case of vocabulary or the grammar pattern in case of grammar explanation (especially the latter one can be very tricky because you usually need to use the past simple tense to talk about the past).

So what would be a correct way of checking the understanding of the word thumb?

• "On what part of your body can you find a thumb?"
• "How many thumbs do you have?"
• "Is this thumb?" (and lifting your index finger)

CCQs in general should exclude all ambiguity and leave no space for a different interpretation. This can be tricky because you usually cannot compose CCQs in advance for every single new item of vocabulary which means you must come up with them on-the-go.

Slightly harder than vocabulary are grammar CCQs. Say you've just been with your students over the difference in the use of Present Simple and Present Simple Continuous and one of your students produces the sentence:

"I am playing football every Wednesday."

What would be the correct way of correcting the student by using CCQs?

• Are you playing football right now?
• Is it Wednesday today?
• Do you play football every Wednesday?

(this naturally assumes that the students are aware that Present Simple is used for events that occur repeatedly and regularly, and Present Simple Continuous for events that are happening at the moment the sentence is being spoken)